To Suffer in Silence
by superlabelgirl
Summary: He had hurt her, and really, an equal and opposite pain was more than fair. All she needed was a little push. Kurloz/Meulin oneshot fic, sadstuck, rated for mind control, some gore, self-abuse, and masochism.


(A.N: This isn't even something I think necessarily happened in canon, it was just a neat little exercise I did on the complexities of mind control and the messed up mind of Kurloz Makara. Again, warning for mind control, gore, sort of self harm as well. Enjoy!)

It was a strange sort of power, he thought, as he pressed a finger to the lips of his monstrous mouth. It was the dead of day, and everyone else was sleeping. But he could not sleep. He had not been able to sleep since the nightmare and the scream, so instead he sat and hated himself and thought. He was alone again, his finger pressed firmly to the source of her pain, and thinking about how his power, like him, was very, very strange.

The power of the chucklevoodoos, controlled by his kind, was not well understood by many. None but the users and the used truly understood, and the used, of course, could always be made to forget. Some thought it was nothing but pain, simple torture hidden inside the mind where none could see the scars. Others considered it a dressed-up version of lowblood psychic control, which allows users to move their target's body against the target's will.

But he knew it was nothing so crude as all that.

His power did touch and test the mind, as they thought. It did allow communication without speech, as they thought. But that was where most lost their understanding. The high motherfucking indigos went beyond this crude movement of matter, this base sadism, this simple pulling of tendons and tongues. Indeed, their most sacred psychic rite had no direct control over another's body. They did not make their used do anything. It was not about making them do.

It was about making them feel.

The most common use of this power, most favored by the subjuggulators, was inducing fear. But for one with enough skill, there was no limit on what the chucklevoodoos could do. Happiness, sadness, rage, and even numbness were all in their control. With more finesse, a user could make their target desire, or stop desiring, anything that they could conceive of. They could pick through memories, craft forgiveness for sins, or paint loved ones as demons. They could control every aspect of their target's mental state. Actions were still decided by the target, operating within the confines of their twisted mind. The one holding that mental fabric could only twist and wait.

To force a man to stab himself is a skill, to be sure. But to make a man _want_ to stab himself, now that is an art.

He considered this as his long, thin fingers ran across his mouth, his lips pressed into a hard, thin line. His mouth, so tightly closed, was torn open by screams not so long ago. It was torn open, almost to the point of tearing his flesh, trying to let out something bigger than anything he had ever known before. He had been sleeping with his true and only pity when it happened, peaceful until his Lord had claimed him. He had taken his sleeping mind and made him the prophet of His harshest of mirths, the Vast Punchline. He saw his Lord ending everything he had known, and he had awoken with equal parts ecstasy and horror. And he had screamed. His voice had mingled with his strange unmastered power, his whole self poured into a scream that threatened to tear him and everything around him apart. His Lord was to come, and he was His herald. His scream was the Vast Honk, announcing things to come.

She could have run. She could have left him, and then she might have been saved from her fate. But no, as always, she had loved him, and in her love she had stayed even when he tore her apart. She had just held him as he writhed from the righteous pain flowing through him, but still he had screamed and screamed. She had held him still, knowing that she could pull him back, and eventually she did. But when he finally came back, it was too late. Her ears, leaking her olive blood, told him of what he had done. When he gasped, she did not hear. When he called out to her, she did not answer. She could hear nothing but his screams echoing in her mind, and she would hear nothing else ever again.

He considered this with a familiar rush of sickening guilt. He was happy, yes, _honored_ to be the herald for his Lord's coming, to sound his arrival. And yet he had hurt her, he had hurt her by being close to her when his Lord had claimed him, and for this he felt sick. She had not blamed him, but that only made it that much worse. She would not forgive him because she would not call it his fault. But it was his fault, this horrible thing he had done. It was his fault, his sin, and his burden, and he needed its punishment. He needed a way to repent.

His Lord, in His miraculous mercy, had granted him his personal retribution in taking a vow of silence. His dreaming self had all but thrown himself at the feet of his Master in gratitude. It had been perfect. His mouth would never again be able to harm her. His voice would be silenced to all if she could not hear it. And, as his Master was firm to remind him before he woke, he would learn to communicate through only that psychic gift his Lord had bestowed on him.

And here, thoughts of his unredressed sin mixed with thoughts of his untapped powers. He had always known, in some way, what he was capable of. When those he cared for were sad, he could make them feel happy with seemingly no effort. When undesirables bothered him, he could simply stare and smile to make them recoil in fear. And always, there had been this soft hum in his head, like a quiet laugh, like a call waiting to be answered. And yet he has never truly answered it, never truly pressed to see what his powers could do.

But the thought of that potential mixed with thoughts of Meulin, of her beauty and her pain, of what he had done to her. She had suffered through so much for him, and she should hate him for it. But of course, she did not. She never even acknowledged how he had hurt her, smiling on and loving him always. But he did not deserve that, not yet. She should want to hurt him first. She should want to drag him down with her into the realms of forced silence. And yet she did not. And yet…

And suddenly, as all of his thoughts lined up perfectly, he knew what he needed to do.

It was amazingly easy. The chucklevoodoos tingled happily when he finally tried to use them in earnest, and they shot out to find her mind. He found her sleeping, dreaming silent, fretful dreams, and suddenly her whole mind was his to see. It was soft and sweet and rounded, beautiful in all of the same ways she was, and he found in awe that with only the slightest nudge, he could see her memories, her feelings, her desires. Gently, he shifted things in her sleeping mind just so, and of her own volition she woke and came to him.

When she arrived, she did not beam or squeal or embrace him, such a common occurrence upon seeing him that he had almost taken it for granted. Instead, her face was flat and unamused, regarding him with disdain and a bit of irritation. "Kurloz," she said to him, and though her voice was serious, it was still her own. It was the way she sounded when she was irritated with him and wanted him to focus. She knew why she was there, and somehow she knew that he knew as well. So he nodded to her, shifting slightly in her mind, not saying a single word.

She exhaled in slight irritation as she looked up at him, their height difference almost a foot. Normally this wasn't an issue, because the look she gave him when she leaned up to be kissed always made him melt and scoop her happily into his arms. Here, she had no intention of being endearing. "Your height is a purroblem for this," she stated matter-of-factly, not forsaking her cat puns on his behalf. "Get on your knees."

He was a bit surprised by this. He knew what he made her want, but he did not know how she intended to get it. But bowing his head silently, he did as she said. He looked up at her, waiting to see what would come.

Satisfied with his more acceptable height, she reached into a pocket on her robe and pulled out a small sewing kit. His stomach lurched slightly as she pulled out a thick needle and began to loop thick black thread into the head. Porrim had given her the kit so that she could do little alterations on her clothes, the most notable among them the tail she had sewn to the back of her skirt. Over time, she had become very good at holding things in place with her neat little stitches. As she took his chin in her hand, he knew what was to come.

Making sure the thread was securely in place, she put the flat of the needle against his lips. She carefully tied a knot in the end of the string as the purple glow of her eyes met his. "Open your mouth," she said flatly, all business, as if this hardly needed saying.

"Meulin," he said to her, quietly, and her brows furrowed in anger. He hardly moved as she slapped him hard across the face.

_Did I say you could speak?_ her mental voice snapped against his mind, able to communicate back through their shared consciousness. _In case you've furgotten, Kurloz, I CAN'T HEAR YOU. And I will see to it that no one else will hear that voice evfur again._

He gasped against the sharp voice in his mind, the voice of his own true pity so angry at him. But soon, he bowed his head slightly in resignation as he made a more proper reply. _I'm sorry._

Her expression of anger smoothed out into a more somber one, her beautifully curved face a place for straight lines and glowing eyes as she tilted his head back up. _It is not enough fur you to be sorry_, her beautiful mind reminded him as her thumb and forefinger pressed lightly on his lower jaw.

He closed his eyes and opened his mouth, not resisting even when he felt the tip of the thick needle touch his inner lip. _I know._

And with that, she pushed the needle straight through his lip, and it came out the other side slicked with purple.

_Does that hurt_? she asked as she felt his soft cry of pain against her nimble hand.

_Yes, _he answered, not daring to even nod as she pressed the bloody needle against the same spot on his upper lip.

_Good,_ she replied. _Focus on that. You must hurt as I hurt. You must understand, and then I can furgive you._ And with another small push through the resistance of flesh, she continued her work.

And so focus on it he did. And while he focused on the perfect agony of the needle and thread piercing him, sealing him, he could not help but think of how easy this had been. Love him though she may, suffer for him though she did, it had been so easy to turn his beautiful girl's thoughts into doing this. He had had to do so little: lift away some repression, encourage the resentment hiding underneath, calm the guilt that followed, and gently whisper that _for taking your sound, he deserves to be silent._ And it was done. He knew what he deserved, but he couldn't have guessed how nearly this matched her own quiet desires, ones that she never would have allowed herself to even think about. A few soft mental strokes, a touch here and there, and his kitten wanted nothing more than to sew him shut. Somewhere deep within, she had wanted what he had deserved, and he could never deny her what she wanted. The agony became ecstasy as he bled more and whimpered less, each piercing pain a stroke towards redemption until he made no sounds at all. It was the least he could do to suffer for her, in silence.

She put six stitches inside of him before she was satisfied. He counted them almost reverently, feeling every inch of the smooth needle and the rough thread pass through again and again, every millimeter memorized in his damaged flesh. When she was finally done, the six stitches stretched across his mouth, only small gaps in between. He could barely separate his lips at all as he swallowed back his blood, as she tied the final knot so thickly that it was likely impossible to undo.

_You have taken my sound, and now I have taken your voice,_ her mind whispered almost tenderly into his. _Now that you have joined me in the silence, I can begin to purrdon you._

And with that, she placed a kiss on his bloody lips.

He couldn't kiss back, didn't stop her, let her have what he made her want. In that moment, he was as much under her control as she was under his. She pressed hard against the new wounds before pulling away, both her eyes and mouth bearing his shade.

She hurt him, and he loved her for it. _Thank you, _he whispered back, in the only way he could.

She seemed pleased with that. _Smile fur me_, she replied. _Smile fur what I have done fur you._ And so, through the agonizing pain, he smiled.

With that, he made her tired. Making sure that she washed his purple blood off her hands and mouth first, he let exhaustion overtake her. She returned to her recuperacoon and slept, and in her sleep he made her forget. He left her more peaceful than he found her. He never stopped smiling.

They all thought he had done it to himself. Why shouldn't they? He was still holding the needle when Meulin had found him, smiling through scabs and thread and blood. She had cried when she found him, asked him why he had done it. He couldn't explain, not through words or signs, not through anything. How could he have explained that this was the fate she had chosen for him, once he made her hate him the way she wouldn't dare to? In the end, he had done it to himself. He had made her despise him, ruin him, in the way she would never have allowed herself to on her own. But she would never know, and the guilt would be his and his alone.

Each day he smiled, and the pain of the stitches pulling his lips made him smile even wider. He smiled through pain so perfect it became pleasure. He would be good. He would serve his Lord even until the Vast Punchline, and then he would tear open his lips and laugh for him. But until then, he had the pleasure of suffering for her. Until then, there would be no laughs she used to love, no words she used to hang on, no screams that used to make her scream. For now, she would speak, and he could do nothing but listen. For now, they were twistedly each other's, saved by the perfect pain of silence.

"Why do you always smile so much?" she asked him, her white eyes wide, her voice too loud as usual. Over eternity, he had long since learned to stop flinching.

_Because it hurts_, he thought. _Because it reminds me what I have done and what I must do. Because it almost feels like your soft lips are back on my bloody ruined mouth, the needle still swinging from my lips, destroying and redeeming me as you never shall again. Because you told me to, and it is all I can do for you anymore._

But she could not know these things. It would undo her, undo everything, and it was not time for the end just yet. So he smiled wider and signed the only thing he could, a skeletal finger pointed at her as he almost but didn't break.

_Because of you. _

:o)


End file.
